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A live online art auction by Hegarty’s of Bandon in Co. Cork gets underway at 2 p.m. on June 20. Around 150 lots of Irish and international art will come under the hammer. Among the artists featured are Graham Knuttell, John Butler Yeats, Ivan Sutton, Gladys Maccabe, Frank Egginton, George Gillespie, Con Campbell, Maurice Canning Wilks, Lorna Millar, John Kingerlee, Douglas Alexander, Patrick Murphy, Marie Carroll and John Ormsby.
The wonderful Barney Eastwood Collection of Important Sporting and Irish Pictures comes up at Christie’s in London on July 9. The 30 lots range from 19th century sporting pictures through to defining representations of Munnings’ oeuvre, to an extraordinary group of Yeats’ illustrating key periods of his work. Other leading examples of Irish Art are included in the sale, with works by Walter Frederick Osborne, Sir William Orpen, Roderic O’Conor, Paul Henry, Sir John Lavery, and Gerard Dillon. The collection, which he started in the 1970’s, represent his deep interest in equestrian painting and Irish Art.
Barney Eastwood, known to his friends and family as ‘BJ’, was born in Northern Ireland in 1932. A talented Gaelic football player he was a member of the Co. Tyrone team which won the All Ireland Minor Championship in 1948. Both horse and greyhound racing were significant sporting passions throughout his lifetime, and together with his great friend and erstwhile business partner Alfie McLean, he had many successful runners over the years.
Charles Cator, deputy chairman, Christie’s International, commented: ‘B.J. Eastwood was a very private man and the collection was intensely personal, acquired not for show or prestige but for the enjoyment of himself, his family and those close to him – it was the least ostentatious way of collecting and it was from the heart.’
Sunny Day, Connemara by Paul Henry comes up at de Veres sale of Outstanding Irish Art and Sculpture in Dublin. It dates to around 1932 and is estimated at 70,000-100,000. There are major works by Jack Yeats, Paul Henry, Roderic O’Conor, Louis le Brocquy, John Shinnors, Basil Blackshaw on offer and a variety of sculpture with work by F.E McWilliam, Patrick O’Reilly, John Behan, Ana Duncan and many more. The art is on view at Kildare St., the sculpture in the garden at the Merrion Hotel. Timed online bidding begins to close at 6 pm on June 22.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for June 12, 2021)
The sale at Sotheby’s of the manuscripts, first editions, letters and bindings that make up the legendary Honresfield Library – assembled with passion by self-made Victorian industrialists William and Alfred Law at the turn of the 20th century – has been postponed. The Honresfield library contains a treasury of English and Scottish literature including the most important Bronte material to come to light in a generation.
Working together with the UK charity Friends of the National Library (FNL), Sotheby’s has agreed to postpone the commencement of the auctions to allow for negotiations for the entirety of the library to be acquired by a consortium of institutions for the nation. The FNL has launched an appeal with an additional donation from its own resources and will be working over the next months to fundraise with the public and private philanthropists. Institutions involved include the Bodleian Libraries, the British Library, The National Library of Scotland, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Brotherton Library (University of Leeds), Abbotsford (The Home Of Sir Walter Scott) and Jane Austen’s House, among others.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for May 25, 2021)
Tempest, a dramatic work by the Limerick artist Donald Teskey, comes up as Lot 14 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of Important Irish Art which runs to June 28. This large canvas, depicting a wave crashing on a rocky sea shore, is one of Teskey’s most dramatic works and was exhibited at the Hunt Museum in 2016.
Born in Rathkeale, Co. Limerick in 1956, Donald Teskey studied at the Limerick School of Art from 1974 to 1978. Two years later, his first one person exhibition was held at the Lincoln Gallery in Dublin. In 1984 he was one of the artists selected by Lucy Lippard for the international touring exhibition Divisions, Crossroads, Turns of Mind. After a decade-long gap, and following an inspirational period at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, in 1996. Teskey began to focus on rural rather than urban subjects, painting landscapes rather than the human figure. His style of painting became more expressionistic. Based in Dublin, Teskey was elected a member of the RHA in 2003 and Aosdána in 2006.
Lucian Freud’s 2002 portrait of David Hockney will make its auction debut at Sotheby’s in London on June 29. Painted at the height of Freud’s career, this portrait of David Hockney provides a fascinating window into the narrative of a long episodic friendship that had started forty years earlier. During the spring and summer of 2002 the two titans of British art came together in a private exchange between artist and sitter. After more than a hundred hours of sittings, the result was one of the most masterful peer-to-peer portraits ever committed onto canvas. It will be a highlight at Sotheby’s British Art Evening Sale: Modern/Contemporary when it will be offered with an estimate of £8,000,000-12,000,000.
This diamond and sapphire cluster ring is lot 245 at O’Reilly’s of Francis St., Dublin sale of fine jewellery, watches and silver which runs online until June 18. It is estimated at 2,000-3,000. The sale of 581 lots is now underway. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,000
This Irish School portrait of Robert Rochfort (1661-1727) features the Great Irish Mace, which represented the authority of the English King in the Irish House of Parliament. The portrait is lot 2453 at Matthews four day online sale from June 19-22. The Great Irish Mace, over five feet in length, had finely chased floral designs with rose of thistle and fleur-de-lis motifs. Matthews attribute the portrait to George Morphy (1655-1715). King James II is believed to have melted down the mace to help pay his war debts.
The source code for the World Wide Web from their creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee are to be auctioned by Sotheby’s as an NFT. Unique on the Ethereum blockchain it is composed of four elements; the original time-stamped files containing the source code written by Sir Tim; an animated visualisation of the code; a letter written by Sir Tim reflecting on the code and the process of creating it ; as well as a digital “poster” of the full code created by Sir Tim from the original files. The British computer scientist invented the world wide web in 1989. The original time stamped files will be offered in a standalone auction titled ‘This Changed Everything’. It is the first historical artefact relating to this landmark moment to be sold. The online sale will run from June 23-30 with bidding starting at $1,000. The sale will benefit initiatives that Sir Tim and Lady Berners-Lee support. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $5.4 MILLION.
Interior by Sir William Orpen comes up as Lot 268 at Sotheby’s Modern and Post War British Art day sale in London from June 23-30. One of a group of exceptional interior paintings begun at 21 Fitzroy St., London in 1899-1901 it is estimated at £40,000-60,000. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
